"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Wilderness Were Paradise Enow

A family member died, and Mrs. Laudator was in charge of funeral and burial arrangements. Limited by available space on the gravestone, she chose "Wilderness Were Paradise Enow" to be the epitaph. This was perfect for the deceased, a nature lover and bird watcher, fond of books and poetry, skeptical about the prospect of an afterlife.

The funeral director, who also served as liaison between the family and veterans' cemetery officials, considered the proposed inscription to be incorrect. She didn't recognize "enow" as an English word, and she thought "were" was erroneously plural with a singular subject.

Mrs. Laudator gave the funeral director a little lesson on English vocabulary, grammar, and literary history.